The Romeo Arrangement

“Ridge, listen.” Her voice softens as she sucks in a breath. “I get it. I empathize with how traumatic losing your mother must’ve been. I just think it’s time to—”

“No. It’s time to hop on a jet and go home. Find yourself some new talent. I can’t believe you wasted a day coming all the way out here to dirty up your designer heels.”

I’m about to back down the hall when my foot scuffs the floor. Ridge turns around and sees me.

Uh-oh.

My insides sink to my feet as he stares at me, his eyes still a dense blue storm.

“That’s her I’m assuming,” the woman says, turning up her nose. “The mysterious Miss Sellers.”

I wiggle several fingers like a waving idiot.

Nothing prepared me for this.

She steps up next to Ridge for a better look, all Hollywood fierceness distilled into a pint-sized lioness.

Her hair is red, professionally dyed and styled. If she wanted to, the woman could be a Reba McEntire double.

She’s tall, slender, wearing a black pencil skirt and fitted jacket that are fashion magazine-perfect. Her white silk blouse and patented leather heels complete the Bitch Queen ensemble.

Her outfit screams money! about as strongly as my jeans and basic sweatshirt scream Wisconsin poor. They might be comfortable, but I doubt my whole wardrobe costs as much as one of her shoes.

Ridge walks toward me, flashing a fake smile that only heightens my nerves.

He’s only doing it to ease my apprehension, and right now, good freaking luck.

He takes my hand, firmly, urging me into the living room.

“This is Grace Sellers, the one and only, soon to be my other half.” He flashes me another fake smile. “Grace, meet Bebe Silk, my former agent.”

He’s got to be kidding. No one has a name like Bebe Silk. Not naturally.

But as much as I’d love to focus on that, I can’t ignore the fact that he’s leaning into the wind. Playing up the lie he started at the Bobcat, the same whopper those tabloids got ahold of and ran wild with. Desperately asking me to go along with it.

Why?

“Really, Ridge?” Bebe rolls her eyes in her porcelain face.

“Really, Bebe,” he snaps. “Play nice.”

His tone is so harsh I look over at him, flinching at the anger etched on his face.

Oh, that gets her. Her eyes whip to both of us, dark and focused like some strange hawk rather than a human being.

Pointing past her, he then says, “Now that you’ve had your little peek into my life, how about you get back in your rental, drive out of here, and fly home to L.A.?”

Bebe doesn’t flinch, at least not in a way I notice.

Instead, she lifts her chin proudly and plants her hands on her narrow hips with an audible thump.

“You don’t want to talk to me like that, Barnet. I’m your only hope of ever working with a studio again.”

“Hell of a threat, considering I’m done with that for the thousandth time,” he says coldly. “You’re the one who wants me back. Royalties and residuals aren’t what they used to be with all the changes in media. But you know they’d kill to see me play one more film—or at least pay through the fucking nose for it.”

“I’ve never denied my interests. It’s you who still can’t figure out they’re the same as yours, money aside.” Bebe shakes her head. “I have people calling me, Ridge, asking if those hit pieces are true.”

“Bull. You didn’t come out here for answers. We’ve been in this industry long enough to know those dung beetles will roll a grain of truth into a fucking boulder.” He gives her a death glare, then raises a hand and points at her. “Tell them it’s true, Bebe. I’m engaged to Grace Sellers. And tell them that anyone who tries to get to her has to come through me.”

She throws her hands in the air. “Lovely. I see that temperament is back. That anger is what almost ruined your career. You know, it’s a miracle Hammond wasn’t in his right mind to press charges. Don’t go there again!”

His hand lets mine fall like deadweight.

“Enough. You know better than to say that name around here,” he snarls, his voice like a roaring wave, taking a ferocious step toward her. “Get. Out.”

Those two clipped words make me tremble.

Holy hell.

I can feel how stiff he’s become, see the fury curdling his face, and…

…I don’t have a clue what I should say, do, or think while he’s in this state.

The man I’m looking at now is a beast of brewing rage, a stranger, not the kindhearted guardian I know.

Bebe isn’t amused. She stands in the arched doorway between the foyer and the living room, tapping one heel, and waves a hand at the portrait of Ridge’s mother.

“What would she think of all this? Think of you? What you’re doing, still playing these games?”